Wind power is considered one of the cleanest, most environmentally friendly energy sources presently available, and wind turbines have gained increased attention in this regard. A modern wind turbine typically includes a tower, a generator, a gearbox, a nacelle, and a rotor having one or more rotor blades. The rotor blades transform wind energy into a mechanical rotational torque that drives one or more generators via the rotor. The generators are sometimes, but not always, rotationally coupled to the rotor through the gearbox. The gearbox steps up the inherently low rotational speed of the rotor for the generator to efficiently convert the rotational mechanical energy to electrical energy, which is fed into a utility grid via at least one electrical connection. Such configurations may also include power converters that are used to convert a frequency of generated electric power to a frequency substantially similar to a utility grid frequency.
A plurality of wind turbines are commonly used in conjunction with one another to generate electricity and are commonly referred to as a “wind farm.” Wind turbines on a wind farm typically include their own meteorological monitors that perform, for example, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, and/or air density measurements. In addition, a separate meteorological mast or tower (“met mast”) having higher quality meteorological instruments that can provide more accurate measurements at one point in the farm is commonly provided. The correlation of meteorological data with power output allows the empirical determination of a “power curve” for the individual wind turbines.
Traditionally, wind farms are controlled in a decentralized fashion to generate power such that each turbine is operated to maximize local energy output and to minimize impacts of local fatigue and extreme loads. However, in practice, such independent optimization of the wind turbines ignores farm-level performance goals, thereby leading to sub-optimal performance at the wind farm level. In addition, conventional wind turbine systems do not account for prevailing wind inflow and other ambient conditions. As the ambient conditions over the wind farm tend to change frequently, the initial models estimated for operating the wind farm may be inaccurate for use during real-time implementation. Inaccurate modeling of the wind parameters, in turn, may result in use of incorrect control settings for the wind turbines in the wind farm. Thus, the conventional optimization approaches for controlling a wind farm usually provide only a marginal improvement in the farm-level performance output.
Thus, a system and method for controlling a wind farm that provides a framework to better manage the trade-off between data availability and/or data quality from each of the wind turbines in the wind farm and energy estimates would be advantageous.